Turkey Rocks, CO: Belay error causes near-death accident

cjdrover wrote: A belayer that needs notice before you fall is not really belaying.

you should not have to alert your belayer you are falling, hanging, snapping a photo, or stopping to give yourself a nice tug....

when a person says "on belay" you are telling your climber you have him/her no matter what.

by suggesting you should have to announce a fall or your intention to hang to get a safe belay is excusing incompetent, inattentive, and unsafe belay technique.

if she said "on belay" and let her climbers start climbing, then let them fall, she is in the wrong--completely, utterly, irrefutably. period. this is the kind of BS that gets people killed.

if you tell your climber she/he is on belay, you have that person 100% until she/he announces to you "i'm off belay." anything else is russian roulette.

p.s. a Gigi (not a GriGri), but a Gigi allows you to belay two seconds simultaneously and independently, meaning if one climber hangs, the other can still keep moving and you can take up her/his slack....lightweight, rappels nicely, but you can't belayer a leader on it. i like mine and for long, moderate routes, i think it's worth it.

check it out: Kong Gigi

p.s. only works if rigged correctly, like most climbing stuff. duh!

Copperhead wrote: I belay almost every time off the anchor with an autoblocking device, because it is safe and convenient. I sometimes belay two seconds. I've never found it to be a problem or difficult to keep up with two seconds. If you have, you must be doing something wrong.

I agree: this was inexcusable cockpit error, plain and simple, by someone who doesn't understand how an ATC Guide works. By pulling on the wire loop of the Guide, it essentially reoriented the Guide just as if one had rigged up a cord for pulling it into lowering mode. Pulling on the friction locker between the ropes and the Guide would also be a potentially fatal error (unless one is lowering or providing slack).

I always do a pull test prior to putting my second on belay. As a second, I generally try to remember to do a pull test before climbing, just in case, but damn, ya gotta be able to trust your belayer...

What makes you think the keeper wire held body weight? It sounds to me like it never had to...

Sweet WTF who in the hell would connect their ATC Guide to the anchor with a quick draw???????

+1
Seems like the belayer needs a little more practice in using an ATC in guide mode..
Simple visual inspection of the set up should have raised some red flags..
+ if you are truly proficient in the use of an ATC guide ( and understand its function) you would never set it up in the manner described..
A bad mistake that thankfully didnt cost anyone there lives..
Heal up bud!

It blows my mind that anyone would put any responsibility for this accident on Climber C. It was 100% the fault of Climber A. If you know how to use your belay device properly, it is not at all difficult or dangerous to belay a second and third simultaneously. Climber C has no responsibility to tell his belayer that he intends to hang on the rope. The purpose of a belay is to arrest a climber's fall--regardless of the circumstances of said fall.

Last fall I was climbing a sport route in CCC. My belayer couldn't see me. I clipped a bolt, tried to make a move and then fell. My belayer started to catch my fall, but then thought that I was trying to make a clip, so he fed out a bunch of slack. At this point I was leaning back on the rope, so I flipped upside down and whizzed by a pillar head first; it nearly brained me. I bumped back up the rope ~25 ft (the last bolt was at my knees when I fell) and traded out the 'draw for a leaver 'biner and lowered off cuz I had suddenly lost all confidence in my belayer. When I got down, he told me that I was partially at fault for not telling him that I was cruxing and I might fall. I called bullshit; the purpose of a belay is to stop a climber's fall. Period.

Who is the third climber? By protecting his name you are allowing for the possibility that he will drop someone again. Noobs multi pitch leading in a party of three? What a crap shoot, I can't think of a more dangerous or uncomfortable situation.

Does this finally prove that ATC's are safer than Gri-Gri's???

Johny Q wrote: Does this finally prove that ATC's are safer than Gri-Gri's???

Ok, before I take the bait...is that sarcasm?

To give the belayer some benefit of the doubt my assumption is that the device was rigged in this manner as she found it was easier to take up slack (I mean all that friction makes things sooooo hard). The problem is that while she likely may know a little bit about how the device works, but has no idea about how dangerous the orientation she rigged was. Unless she was counting on the wire loop breaking when the ropes were tensioned, this is a very dangerous shortcut.

JLP wrote: I, too, think it's safe to assume A was reasonably competent and didn't intend to drop C. The fact that C seems to value vindication more than his relationship/partnership with A, as shown by throwing her under the bus here at MP.com, says more to me than technical details about how the device was rigged.

Like, how could he possible be mad at A after she dropped him, injuring him badly?

JLP wrote: I, too, think it's safe to assume A was reasonably competent and didn't intend to drop C. The fact that C seems to value vindication more than his relationship/partnership with A, as shown by throwing her under the bus here at MP.com, says more to me than technical details about how the device was rigged.

JLP, of course A did not intend to drop C, but she made a near-fatal error in rigging the ATC Guide for auto-block mode off an anchor. That is simply not "reasonably competent". I, for one, don't want to follow a leader who is reasonably competent; I want her to be 100% competent.

And I don't think the OP was throwing A under a bus; if he were, he would have named names. Instead, he shared a harrowing experience from which we all can learn. In fact, the technical details are important, and if they are not well-understood, they can lead to serious accidents such as this.

muttonface wrote: The keeper wire had to have held body weight in order for the ATC Guide to stay in the inverted position which prevented the blocking action of rope on rope. Had the keeper wire broken, gravity and the Climber C's weight would have immediately yanked the device into the position it should have been in the first place; suspended only by the large biner ring at the rear/top of the device. If this had occurred, the device would have blocked via rope on rope friction as it is intended to.

Sorry, muttonface, but you clearly do not understand the basic physics here. If the climber (C) fell, then his weight was not being supported by anything.

Of course there will be some friction in the system from the rope sliding through the device, so I'm sure the climber did not fall at 1g. Probably--and this is only an estimate--more like 0.9g. Which means that the wire would have held 10% of body weight. 20lb.?

Anyway, I agree with JohnL. I am happy to hear that everyone is still alive, and that lessons have hopefully been learned from this sad experience.

rob rebel wrote:Pull test!!!!! Whenever I set up my guide in autolock mode I do a pull test to confirm I have the setup in the correct direction.

+1 This is the main lesson. Test your rig! How hard is that? Grateful that B is alive. Mistakes will happen but dropping someone from a top rope is as close to unforgivable as it gets.

Climber B is on MP.
Climber C is on MP.

W(here)TF is Climber A? Lurking, I reckon?

Love to hear your side of the story. Not to crucify you (the internet is a mean place, it's not you), but to learn from a mistake that didn't send anyone out of the canyon in a body bag. You aren't responsible to owning all the blame in this incident, but yeah, more than a little from what I've read.

It'd be good to hear it. We all make mistakes. Accident reports analyzed with the stories from all sides offers a more objective assessment of the situation. You made mistakes. A good climber, hell person, admits to their faults and helps to explain what happened and what was learned. I'd NEVER climb with someone that made a huge mistake like you did. Well... unless you had the humility and courage to tell your side of the story. Character like that? Damn right. I'd climb with you.

Mia KCarver wrote:Climber B is on MP. Climber C is on MP. W(here)TF is Climber A? Lurking, I reckon? Love to hear your side of the story. Not to crucify you (the internet is a mean place, it's not you), but to learn from a mistake that didn't send anyone out of the canyon in a body bag.

It would be nice to have a civil discussion with Climber A, but he or she would be crucified, insulted and other not-so-nice verbs. MP is a rough crowd!

muttonface wrote: Maybe I'm mistaken, but the way I read it, it sounded like there was a little slack in the system on climber C's rope. When C chose to let go and hang on the rope, instead of being blocked (had the device been rigged properly), he fell. Picture top-roping someone from the bottom of a route, leaving some slack in the system, and then holding the rope not in the opposite direction (the brake position) but parallel to the climber's side (as if you were about to pull slack through the device. Now, the climber lets go of the wall and falls. Holding the rope in that position, you're not going to be able to hold that fall. That is precisely what happened in this case; except from the top, not the bottom. Now, had the wire NOT held under the weight of the climber, the device would have rotated (after the wire broke) and it would have reacted like it should have had it been rigged properly. I don't know how I'm wrong, and I usually don't split hairs over mundane details but you just came off as pompous and I felt the urge to reply. You're right. Muttonface don't know physics. But Muttonface know rigging. Muttonface know rigging very well.

It seems as though Muttonface does not know rigging as well as he thinks he does.

Buff Johnson wrote:Joe -- I think if you click on that "BAD" photo from Steve, it matches up pretty well to the OP description. I have no idea if this rigging decision was just incompetence or trying to pre-rig and reinvent a wheel the wasn't broken to begin with. It's something that shouldn't have happened if the rig was done within instruction and specs of the device no matter what either seconding climber did. Once they're on, a 30' deck shouldn't have occurred.

Yep, I caught those photos after my post, Pretty much what I pictured in my head, except I didn't imagine the anchor was a cabinet or door handle thingy. I would question those flat head wood screws, and maybe consider some real bolts to support the hanger in the picture before attaching my belay quickdraw to the anchor. ;-)

And is Buff your new stage name? I kind of like that.

muttonface wrote: Maybe I'm mistaken, but the way I read it, it sounded like there was a little slack in the system on climber C's rope. When C chose to let go and hang on the rope, instead of being blocked (had the device been rigged properly), he fell. Picture top-roping someone from the bottom of a route, leaving some slack in the system, and then holding the rope not in the opposite direction (the brake position) but parallel to the climber's side (as if you were about to pull slack through the device. Now, the climber lets go of the wall and falls. Holding the rope in that position, you're not going to be able to hold that fall. That is precisely what happened in this case; except from the top, not the bottom. Now, had the wire NOT held under the weight of the climber, the device would have rotated (after the wire broke) and it would have reacted like it should have had it been rigged properly. I don't know how I'm wrong, and I usually don't split hairs over mundane details but you just came off as pompous and I felt the urge to reply. You're right. Muttonface don't know physics. But Muttonface know rigging. Muttonface know rigging very well.

Muttonface, if I sounded pompous, I apologize. I was merely disagreeing with you.

I am actually pretty open to discussion.

You are saying two things:
(1) The climber fell; i.e., his weight was not being supported; and
(2) The keeper wire was supporting the climber's weight.

These cannot both be true. At the risk of sounding pompous again: this is basic physics--I would not expect you to need any formal training in physics (or rigging?) to understand this.

muttonface wrote: Actually, I'm pretty confident on this one. Please refer to the pictures above, making sure to scrutinize the text that I wrote and tell me where I'm wrong.

Nobody is disputing your interpretation of the setup. Dusty and I both agree the belay was set up as you describe.

However, what you fail to understand is that the keeper wire "supports" only the friction in the system, NOT the climber's weight. Not even for an instant.

I have tried to show you where your understanding of the mechanics in question are incorrect, but you are not interested in that:

muttonface wrote:stick to the slackline; yer gonna die.

This thread needs to die, but it's just so entertaining!